Government departments could be relocated to regional centres in a bid to spread WA's booming population, but Premier Colin Barnett said local councils were resisting the move.
New population projections released yesterday claim WA will surpass 3 million people within 14 years, 400,000 more than was predicted in the latest estimate in 2006.
Perth and the Peel region are expected to lead the rapid growth, reaching between 2.275 million and 2.356 million by 2026.
Mr Barnett said there were "gross pressures" on Perth, and WA needed more regional cities.
"In Queensland there are 11 regional centres outside of Brisbane, with populations well over 50,000 and a number of them with a quarter of a million people," he said.
"We need to have broader distribution of the population of WA to cope with population growth but also to take pressure off transport and all those things."
Mr Barnett said Bunbury, less than two hours south of Perth, should become the state's second capital.
He had considered moving a government department there to initiate the growth of the city's present population of 50,000.
"I'm not about to do that but obviously if you can get some agreement in Bunbury, that is the area in which you should grow public sector employment and relocate government departments or head offices," he said.
"It's very close to Perth, it's the biggest population centre [outside Perth] and the one with the best infrastructure."
Opposition leader Mark McGowan announced this morning he would move the Department of Local Government to Albany if Labor won the election in March next year.
The 100 staff would be the first government department employees based outside of Perth.
The move would save $1.57 million in rent and outgoings each year, according to Mr McGowan.
"Labor believes in providing an economic base to regional communities and there are few better ways to do it than moving government departments to these areas," Mr McGowan said.
"The Department is tasked with monitoring the activities of local governments and the vast majority of these are located in the country, so it is logical that it is moved."
WA is now expected to reach the 3 million people mark five years earlier than previously thought, placing greater pressure on governments and councils to build infrastructure to accommodate the extra people.

Places like Albany and similar locations around the country are the places that would benefit from the movement of Government departments, industry and the like away from metropolitan areas to take the infrastructure burden off the major capitals.

I must note that I don't pass judgement on the viability of this strategy, just going with the flow of 'what if'

Standard strategic is reducing pressure on infrastructure In Major centers (although I think that is a debatable argument)...

Proper Strategic goes beyond that thinking if we want to reduce pressure on our major cities where would it best be placed... The northern towns are best because they are closer to the major ports, closer to our major trading partners and militarily provide a staging base for the defense of the country...

Albany is a nice little town that had its high point in ww1 as the training ground for anzacs.

Good to see you agree Avatar, Persico, NoshowwithoutPunch. Easiest way to build a new city is to start with a clean slate, instead of trying to turn existing towns into big cities. We need to get the debate going in the wider community, to make this the world's first crowdsourced city. Think how innovative it could be then. That means getting input from people with all kinds of professional backgrounds.

Join in the discussion so you can have your say on what the ideal city would look like. Virtually every profession / area of expertise needs a say - e.g. if you work in defence, how would a new city in the north affect defence planning? If you're in urban planning or architecture, how can the new city be a world leader in design and livability? If you work in manufacturing, how can the new city foster a proper export-led manufacturing base e.g. through SEZ's? I think everyone who is knowledgeable in their field needs to have say.

Let me know if you want to contribute - details on the website. And if you've just opened this thread, the website we're talking about is http://libertycitygroup.org/ a website for the world's first crowdsourced city, built in Oz top end.

To those forumers who said Australia should grow its existing cities, yes I agree with you, it should. But for social/political and myriad other reasons growing existing cities is capped at about 1.5-1.7% year in terms of population growth and that's pushing the limits, growth any faster than that starts to cause huge electoral backlash and eventually it would be stopped politically. Almost all Aust. govt's have wanted growth but are bound by this constraint. But Australia needs to grow - it should have an economy the size of Germany or Japan's. Main constraint though is population growth. Best way round it is to create new cities.

If you don't believe me about this point go ask your average Aussie neighbour what he /she thinks about turning the 'hood into a zone for mega dense high rises. Guaranteed most will say no. Fact is Aust. cities are extremely limited due to mentality of low density living which is already entrenched. Only way out is a clean break with the norm by starting a new city.

Standard strategic is reducing pressure on infrastructure In Major centers (although I think that is a debatable argument)...

Proper Strategic goes beyond that thinking if we want to reduce pressure on our major cities where would it best be placed... The northern towns are best because they are closer to the major ports, closer to our major trading partners and militarily provide a staging base for the defense of the country...

Albany is a nice little town that had its high point in ww1 as the training ground for anzacs.

I think none of those points actually matter to any great extent in the modern world and the penalties of building somewhere remote exceed the benefits of them.

For example, yes it is ideal to be close to a port but the actual location of the port is not very important. The difference in shipping costs between Southern and Northern Australia is very, very small. Same with being close to major trading partners, modern communications and flights mean the most important thing is to be in a similar time zone and on that front anywhere in WA is ok, finally, the idea that you need 'major' population centres to 'defend the country' is a very outdated idea, more suited to 1912 than 2012. Yes major military assets (troops, ships, aircraft) should be located in the north with large enough population centres to support them (such as Darwin) but there is no need for anything more than that.

but major military assets would easily be shifted back to the areas with population to protect them rather than sit in the desert where there is nothing... a city up there requires defence (doesn't make the country more defendable) - it asserts our sovereignty over the area.

Despite the improvement in comm's everyone still likes to shake someones hand in business, flying 3-4 hours less to say Broome compared to Albany (or Perth) from Singapore/Shanghai/Tokyo would be a nice little benefit to the new city when increasingly the size of Australian projects both mining and even civil infrastructure are getting beyond the capacity of Australia to finance them.

What has happened to Melbourne since the first mining boom ended? The boom of the 1850s is what made Melbourne to grow into a major city. People didn't just pack up and leave when it was over.

Quote:

And if you think it won't, how many has Australia had since Federation?

This mining boom is going to last decades, most likely half the country, China's not going any where the only limit is what's in the ground. Plenty of time for it to change the distribution of population in the country and majorly change cities, just like the 19th century boom did.

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but major military assets would easily be shifted back to the areas with population to protect them rather than sit in the desert where there is nothing... a city up there requires defence (doesn't make the country more defendable) - it asserts our sovereignty over the area.

Despite the improvement in comm's everyone still likes to shake someones hand in business, flying 3-4 hours less to say Broome compared to Albany (or Perth) from Singapore/Shanghai/Tokyo would be a nice little benefit to the new city when increasingly the size of Australian projects both mining and even civil infrastructure are getting beyond the capacity of Australia to finance them.

Agree with this logic, need to assert sovereignty then use it. Use it or lose it. Not like the reffo debate, howard trying to give away australian sovereignty.

I think the logic is against SE australia. Nothing to support it. Build next city in NE!

I'm sure there has been, we had one here only recently, but I don't think many people would want to move to the outback. If they did, Alice Springs might have a larger population than it does. The Australian outback isn't exactly the most hospitable of environments. I would imagine it could also be quite expensive as food/water, etc would more than likely have to be sent to the town/city. Basically, it's more pleasant to live by the coastline. Of course, each to their own, but the fact that 85%+ of the population lives within 50km of the coastline says something.

There's a reason Europeans basically ignored Australia until the east coast was charted and it's the same reason the east coast is as populated as it is while the north-west coast numbers only small towns.

There isn't a whole lot that can be done with the space, though. It's largely uninhabitable, and you can't grow crops out there. Best thing would be to turn it into solar farms.

Anyway, I can bet that it would take a hell of a lot of convincing to get people to move from San Francisco/Los Angeles/Miami/New York to Laughlin, Nevada. Just as it would convincing people to move from Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth to Alice Springs.

i have big fingers trying to type on iphone. **** it shits me.
my post was-
i reckon SOMERSBY should be next big city.
its 90min north of sydney/half way to newcastle.
rumoured site for sydneys 2nd airport.
they will need to build fast train service and fix f3 if city is built!

There isn't a whole lot that can be done with the space, though. It's largely uninhabitable, and you can't grow crops out there. Best thing would be to turn it into solar farms.

Anyway, I can bet that it would take a hell of a lot of convincing to get people to move from San Francisco/Los Angeles/Miami/New York to Laughlin, Nevada. Just as it would convincing people to move from Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth to Alice Springs.

If they can pipe water out to the desert and build the city in the desert LAS VEGAS then they can do the same to Alice Springs and any other town out in the desert of Australia.